


Sacrifices

by Lavender_Seaglass



Series: What's heard in the silence [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Abduction, Blood Magic, Demons, Elf Stuff, F/M, Female Mage Trevelyan - Freeform, Forbidden Ones - Freeform, Forgotten Ones, Human Sacrifice, Some depictions of abuse, alternative elf facts, custom names, fade stuff, not actually Dalish, the existence of sex is acknowledged
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-07
Updated: 2017-11-09
Packaged: 2019-01-30 12:44:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12653766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lavender_Seaglass/pseuds/Lavender_Seaglass
Summary: The return from Emprise du Lion is not an easy one.





	1. i.

She’s looking rough, if she has to be honest.

The mission to Emprise du Lion had been successful, with a new keep added to the Inquisition's ever-expanding network and, more importantly, she had saved the remaining villagers from their local noble’s willingness to reckon their lives as less valuable than a continuation of a false, finite peace. For the sake of her own fitful, but preserved, personal peace of mind, she had condemned many to die, while telling herself, justifying it to herself, it’s all for the greater good. Althea thinks the noblewoman would have kept sacrificing them, too, until there was no-one left to claim as someone she was trying to protect.

Having rescued dozens from a gruesome death in the quarry--or an unspeakable fate even worse which had befallen some she failed to save--she is glad that she was able to help. She is satisfied with the job done. But now she has to deal with the Orlesian noblewoman whom she had taken into custody, on the authority of the Inquisition, before she had departed. Even more than the loquacious demon she had had to come face-to-face with, the woman is weighing on her mind. How could someone be self-righteously despicable, so truculent in her actions and still believe she’s not just grossly self-serving? Festering like a rot she is on the Inquisitor’s consciousness, aching and disturbing as an angry carbuncle, unignorable as an inflamed hangnail. She is a swollen bubo which must be popped before she poisons body and soul, but, until the right tool can be selected, retrieved, sterilised, and wielded, the stench of her continuous weeping causes a miasma of nausea and anxiety.  

And Althea is the one who must pass judgment on this noble. Empress Celene, whom she has yet to impress enough to garner an invitation to her court proper, has nonetheless expressly given the leader of the Inquisition authority over her social better. The civil war must truly be brutal and consuming if she’s delegating even such lesser responsibilities to a foreigner, and one who is technically an apostate mage besides.

Still, whatever reasons and circumstances have caused the decision to become hers, the Inquisitor is the one who must make it. What will she do with one willing to throw away scores and scores of her own neighbours? What will she do with someone who is so able to easily justify killing at all?

When she had requested a moment of privacy away from the party to freshen up before turning in for the night, her companions had looked at her, and they had watched her leave, but they had had not stopped her. Varric said she might want to take with her some powder if she actually wanted them to believe she might be powdering her nose. Cassandra had told the Inquisitor to hurry back so they could all get to sleep soon. Solas had restrained himself from offering to accompany her out into the night, but he had bid her be careful, to take care. And that was all. No-one objected. No-one told her no.

So, here she is, out on an unspecified timer, in a hurry to get back when she is ready. That they will be expecting her is more a comfort than anything, but it’s not one she currently finds all that comforting. It’s not what she needs. It’s not as helpful to her as the nearly painful shock of the cold, cold tarn water splashed on her worn and ruddy face. Not as soothing as the smooth rock she finds to balance in the centre of her palm, which she heats with magic, and then cools, before warming it again in a cycle she learnt a long time ago as an exercise to flex her focus.

She is tired. Very tired.

Her thin hands shake as she puts down the still-warm rock. Slowly, she gets on her callused hands and knees to edge again nearer on the shore to the placid water. If she wanted, she could take back a measure of it, heat it up, and have something approximating a proper bath. There are even little bars of scented Orlesian soap back at camp. However, her hygiene--which is important to her, she has lived the pampered lifestyle of a Circle mage with regular access to such sundry luxuries as fancy soap--isn’t the real reason she’s out here. The most important thing right now is the space. Empty space where, if she needs to, she can let her mask fall without repercussions. Let it clatter to the ground, if she so chooses.

The darkness, she thinks, is concealing her. Like a blanket draped over a vulnerable body by a concerned, caring friend.

She’s not invincible. But she reckons she is somewhat invisible.

So she relaxes, and doesn’t see the darkly reflected face staring over her shoulder until it’s moving like a predator suddenly springing to the hunt.

Before she can register any of the other’s features, Althea spins around and sways as her hands scrabble over the clacking shingle for purchase. Stones tumble, roll, click, seemingly part beneath her and a hushed curse aimed at them makes it out of her pursed lips.

Should she be calling for help? She sees no-one. But that doesn’t, she realises too late, mean no-one sees her.

A blur of shadows shocks her attention right, at the same time as something skulks in the treeline, a shambling shade which is black against the layers of darkness behind it. There are no sounds, she also realises. No crickets, no wind, no wolves. Not even the camp can be heard. How far are they out from Skyhold?

There are no Avvar. Not this far into Orlais, never in the highlands of what was once elvish land. More likely she’d see faerie lights come up from the great expanse of the untamable Arbor Wilds somewhere to the south of here.

A splashing sound behind her. She starts a spell, draws on her mana and friendly spirits in the Fade, to protect her as she realises there’s no doubt about it now. She’s surrounded.

Then--

A strike from her left which she dodges, sliding on the shingle probably more than her attacker had anticipated. Dozens of stony points poke and prod into her skin, and she crawls like a febrile thing of desperate nightmares to get to her staff leant up against a boulder nearby. The frothy, faint shimmer of her barrier is not enough to illuminate the night. She still doesn’t know, still cannot see, the faces of her assailants. Even as the next one comes directly at her.

The same moment she gets her fingers around her staff she lets out a strangled kind of cry and a furiously forceful push of energy. Her assailant staggers back, but not before touching her, laying his hands on her, and her experiencing searing, rending pain. The mark on her left hand flickers like a wild, frightened thing in the wake of its paroxysms, and it is presently unusable. It takes all of her adrenaline-fuelled fear to get her to her feet using her staff and one good hand.

Althea staggers to stand on the back of her heels, the rocks clatter under her, and someone is now flanking her. Whipping around she aims her staff and conjures lighting crafted from her own inherent power and that of the Fade. It crackles along the length of her weapon, it shreds the air with summoned energy and the pervasive scent of ozone.

Violet-white is unleashed by her into the night, and then it goes nowhere new, no where it is intended or needed. The anchor flares and she means to shriek but there is no air. No air is left for her, it has all been burnt up by the return of her spell towards her. And the shock of it steals from her whatever precious little may be left to her in her lungs. Reeling, collapsing, she is falling, yet she is not fallen.

Someone has her. Someone is pinioning her arms behind her back. There is a loud protesting wrinkle of pain between her shoulders.

As she struggles through the paralysis, the blizzard of sparks buzzing in her vision, the glacial weight and speed of her speech, she tries to get some information from those who have captured her. Even an inkling of who, or why, would mean something.

Their brief response to her attempts at questioning them is to shove something over her head. She’s fading quickly, very quickly, faster than she can currently account for. Probably, is her last thought, they will be gone before anyone could travel the distance she had put between her and them.

 

**.**

 

It is not easy, waking.

Nor is it pleasant. There is a savage roar as if there were an ocean forced into her head, a myriad of foul tastes in her desert of a mouth, a pulsing pain in her temples, and a sore stiffness in her back she cannot relieve.

She tries. And tries.

Yet, as she stirs, she finds she cannot move. Couldn’t move, actually, unless the cruel and unyielding knots along her wrists and arms were to loosen. And the musty darkness, which she took for a part of a bedroll, is actually a hood over head, tucked and secured in place by a rope tighter on her neck than a used noose. Swallowing rubs her throat against the rough poky fibers.

Trying not to panic, she remains still and silent. Some birds can be heard. She can also feel the prominent grooves of bark at her back. The morning smells damp, of mist, of the luxuriant decay of autumn. She is still in the forest; or, a forest. She must have not been taken far.

Then there are the voices. Three of them. They are coming towards her like spectres, utterly inaudible save for their speaking in whatever language it is they are using.

Not common. Not Orlesian. Not elvish.  

It’s a bizarre fusion of the three from what she can gather, though there is little of what they are saying that she can actually understand. It’s less than one word in twenty.

When they are speaking over her--judging from the volume of their voices--she tries something. Swallowing no moisture into her parched mouth and throat, she speaks hoarsely an elvhen phrase taught to her by Solas.

‘ _I am a friend of the People_.’

No derisive laughter comes. No acceptance either. No follow up conversation among them about what they are going to do with her. Have they simply decided to leave her here, have they set her free to her fate, whatever may befall a single human female bound fast and abandoned in the woods?

Flexing her fingers, she lets her head slump, almost as if she’s arching her neck and leaning forward in supplication. As if her forehead might touch the ground.

Something wet and substantial lands on the top of her hooded head.

One of the three spits a word at her. Once, back when she was in the Circle, she had heard the same word used to denigrate a renegade romantic partner. It was the Dalish word for whore.

 

**.**

 

This first day in captivity she is treated more like unruly livestock than any kind of prostitute. Surely one of them would get a measure more of respect, regard, and rest than her.

Althea is led by the rope at her neck. Once she stumbles over a root she cannot see or account for. She goes down, and they do not stop, they drag her along unrelenting until one of them, while hissing something at her, kicks her, jams strong fingers into the flesh of her shoulders, lifts her up, and drops her on her feet. She staggers, but fear of not being able to get up again catches her and keeps her upright as they begin to whip her calves with something that feels like a branch of significant thickness. Painful, even through the leather layers of her boots and breeches. After that she continues to get several lashes for every step of hers that falters, so that she feels eventually like a piece of meat they are trying to tenderise.

It’s a long day.

By what must be long past nightfall--the chill in the air is high and rim was starting to crunch distinctively underfoot before they had stopped--it is no longer just the four of them. There are at least six new people with them now, bringing their party up to ten. She can hear the other nine sitting around a roaring fire and holding what sounds to be a serious conversation. Eventually their voices start to fade out into a distant crashing of sounds that wash over her.

They have secured her to a wide tree and left her. But, before she can slip away into the Fade, one of them comes over to her and makes a short series of squelching noises and clipped, jarring incantations.

Quite suddenly she is so very, very heavy. Her consciousness is dimming like a fire burning itself out.

She understands: this is torpor and sloth induced by blood magic. They are compelling her to sleep without the prospect of dreaming. That’s how they got her down in the first place. It’s why she senses the Fade diverting from its natural flow around them no matter how many steps they take towards their intended destination. It explains why there have been so few spirits to ask for help.

 

**.**

 

The second day, she bleeds a lot. Her socks must be stained red. Reasoning in terms of her own survival, it’s a shame she does not practise the same magic they do.

On the third day, she is given a brief gift. They have not yet removed the hood to give her food or water. So, finally, dehydration catches up. She faints with a swollen tongue, waxy skin, desiccated lips, and wind rustling in the trees overhead. Are they still green, or is she going out under a woven canvas of colour?

She’ll know too soon, she fears.

 

**.**

 

A voice joins hers. Lowered, hushed, meant and kept to be intimate just likes hers, but his has always been deeper. Huskier. He has several inches on her, as well an unspecified number of years. He said he honestly isn’t sure he’s ever known his true birthday. But he knows for sure he is older than her.

When he offers to help her with her hair, it shows.

‘What? Do you want to feel it? I’ll just let you touch it if that’s the case. It is softer and smoother than that head of yours. Silkier too.’

‘I’ve not always been bald you know. I once had more hair than you do now. And I took much better care of it.’

‘All right, then.’

A scoff from her, but an invitation to him nonetheless. Gentle, even strokes follow, patience from him purposefully to not tug on tangles, knuckles brushing along her scalp as he finally starts to sort her locks. Then, at the end, when he is done, fingers resting at the nape of her bare neck. Her hair pinned, tied, trussed, contained by him, made to look strikingly elegant by the imposition of his will and design.

And his breath--it’s warm on her rarely exposed skin. A sensuous tension it raises, as if something might come of this contact after all. It could be her head leaning back into his chest, his hand trailing lower on her, his nose coming down to nestle on her crown. Inhalations would the only sounds audible between them.

But, as much as she misses him, this isn’t where she should be right now. Not when time is so direly short. Minutes, is it? Maybe a quarter of an hour.

It depends. On how long she can stay truly asleep. In any case, she cannot afford to spend time so precious on such a dalliance.

 _Find me_ , she tells the shifting, twisting, empty void with wringing hands. _Please,_ she asks.

She stays put here with no time for her to go wandering down impermanent roads on her own. She wishes she could sense anything prowling. But her magic, even the mark, is mute here.

‘Now that’s how you should have talked to me, Inquisitor.’

Althea turns, and now there is a demon with her. Or back with her.

‘Command spirit,’ he says, correcting her, for he already knows. She doesn’t exactly have a lot of respect or fear of him. She had defeated him--they had defeated him. Now, he needs to remind her that she is alone. ‘You ought to try calling me that sometime. Who knows? You may find me inclined to actually pay attention to the contents of your comely begging. Think about it, will you?’

Before she can respond to him in any way, she is wrenched back into her nightmare in the waking realm.


	2. ii.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The group is attacked, giving her another chance to escape.

When she is waking, she is drowning. Light and water both bear down upon her mouth, nose, eyes, the entirety of her raw and aching face. Overwhelmed, choking on the overabundance of these forces along with the sudden scourge of fresh air, Althea gasps and wrenches backwards into the grasp of arms that clench down around her. The grip is solid, sturdy, strong with the sinews she imagines must come when your life depends upon the tautness of a bow. This is a hunter’s grasp, she’s sure. It holds her still even when two arms around her are reduced to one.

Still struggling, she finds a blindfold wrapped tightly around her head before her eyes get a chance to be anything besides assaulted by the sun. Her captors keep her from seeing them. The hood does not return, not yet, as whoever is holding her is handed something to force into her mouth.

Food. Some sort of flesh, because she tastes blood.

Or is that from the hand of her holder? The strong person who has her pinned flat against their chest? There are ferrous flecks floating in her throat.

In any case, the hand stays around her mouth and fingers pinch her nose so she has no choice but to chew through if she wants to breath. Once she’s swallowed she is let go to stumble without any support or guidance. Someone says something, and someone else takes a steps towards her, and she tries to turn in this person’s direction for some reason she doesn’t quite think through. There’s no plan, really. Just a small sound from her throat between the coughs that wrack her body, coming as she fights for regular breaths and balance. As if  there are churning hot stones in her throat, only the pain is cold and icy.

There’s not much she can do to prevent them applying her hood again. Nor keep away the rope around her neck with a knot that slips closed like a death sentence.

Then comes a sharp tug slap of a tug, and she follows. Her wet clothes make her shiver, her wet skin chaffs. This is not comfortable, but at least they have not killed her yet. Actually, it seems as if they want her alive. Especially if they are willing to go through the dudgeon-inducing task of feeding her something.

So the third day passes into the fourth, broken for her only by the artificial sleep they put upon her. And a quick douse of water on her hood when they wake her, with fingers stuck in towards her mouth to indicate what she’s supposed to do. Awful as the fabric tastes, she sucks moisture from it until the stain has dried up.

 

**.**

 

Althea is stepping uphill, trying to place her unseen foot careful as she can, hoping she will find purchase in the sand-like dirt. She makes the step, is thankful, even not knowing how many she may have left ahead, when the ground gives out from beneath her. There is a cry that comes from above her.

Someone falls backwards into her, and the two of them go barrelling into another who doesn’t move out of their way. All three crash into what must be a dried up water bed of some kind, the dirt here feels more solid beneath her as she rolls off the chest of the person she hit, onto her side, and tries blindly to stand, using her hips and knees as leverage.

Footsteps towards her on the dried out mud, and a hand on her head as she struggles to right herself. But they should have grabbed the rope at her neck if they wanted to haul her up, for all their sudden jerking efforts only serve to tug at the hood holding her. Or at least they should have tried to secure some of her hair into their hands. As it is, they pull and pull, not paying attention, or overly desperate, and all they succeed in doing is actually freeing her. The roughspun fabric is pulled clear of the rope meant to hold it.

Still blindfolded, she cannot see, but there is light starting to edge in on her vision.

The person nearest her yells something and is answered by another, frantic yell, apparently prompting the first one to grab her by the upper arm. They start to lead her, and it is with an urgency they shove her along in front of them. Fear--is that what she’s sensing? They must be under an attack of some kind, that’s why they are breaking apart, why she’s being taken away and protected. She’s not sure if this is a comforting thought as she’s forced into an impossible balancing act: she stumbles over branches, rocks, vines, grooves cut into the hardened ground, snags on a thousand invisible things, trips on a thousand unknowable dangers.

Rather than taking her up and out of the river or streambed, they direct her to continue onwards along where water would have flowed, driving her until she is stepping, sinking in mud. There is hesitation, not wanting to get stuck if they are being chased, but she is whacked on the back of the head by her handler and pushed. So she keeps going so she doesn’t fall down.

Eventually, something is said to her.

The air around them grows cooler, and she gathers she has stepped into shadows. Deeper shadows, the ones that linger all day, at the front of a cave. She feels colder air blowing on her face from depths unknown.

They are going to hide here?

She is forced down to her knees, her face pressed against a smoothened rock, it’s surface like a stony dewy petal against her skin. Her nose is almost smashed when she tries to look away. Stay here, is what she’s being told. Her body slackens, all resistance to the idea of not moving going out of her as if her head were suddenly severed.  

Very careful, she’s trying to preserve the integrity of a sudden, crucial personal insight. Her handler must not realise the rough treatment of her head and face is loosening the blindfold, she can feel the return of proper blood flow to her head.  And the band of tingling numbness stretching from temple to temple.

She stays put.

She does not move as they walk away.

Not until there is screaming is she in action--rubbing her face frantically against the rock, freeing herself, rocking back onto her hip and trying to get away.

The rush of unfiltered light is searing, but she still is sure of the first sight she sees when she looks up in front of her: an elf, an elf with vallaslin, having his forearm devoured by a soundless black wolf.

After that, is when things become less certain.

 

**_._ **

 

Somehow, she arrives in the Fade.

At least she knows she is not dead. Souls don’t go to Fade; only spirits and demons are among its actual denizens. She had asked, and Solas had said he had never seen an actual soul there. Spirits taking on identities not their own, sure, but not a human, elf, qunari, or dwarf soul.

Besides: out of all the things they have to bicker on about, all the world’s religions agree on these two points. First, that there has not been, and may never be, proof that a creator does not exist. Second, that souls go somewhere beyond. They do not linger, they do not dwell, they never arrive in the Fade. Once they are done in Thedas, that’s it.

As for ghosts, of course they don’t properly exist. Not in the way that people fancy themselves as haunted.

So, she is not deceased, if she is here. That means she must have been incapacitated in some way that’s natural. She ponders over the last bits of her memory, but, pick and prod at them as she may, nothing is clear. The only thing she can be certain of is that she is here, and now she is not alone.

Fittingly, his voice comes from behind her.

‘Good afternoon, Inquisitor. How are you dreaming today? Rather early to be doing so, I’d say, but then I’m no human. I don’t actually know what you lot usually get up to these days.’

She turns to face him, before she actually speaks to him. Not out of respect for this ancient being--she just knows you should never address a demon with your back to them. It makes it even easier for them to lie. You should never not face your fears head on.

‘I am not here to speak to you, demon.’

‘Choice spirit, my dear.’

‘I do not desire your help.’

‘Ah, but do you need it?’

‘No.’

‘The choice is yours to make,’ he says, and makes no indications that he’s remotely interested in leaving her alone. The scenery around them shifts from amorphous forest shadows, into ill-defined town square. There is a quaint stone bench for him to sit on now behind him, and he pats the seat at his side. Beckons for her to join him.

Althea does not move from her spot. She cannot be budged. ‘Is that all? You’re offering me a choice? Then I choose no.’

‘That’s not a choice, Inquisitor. That’s one part of a binary-pair of answers. You need to hear the pitch first.’

‘Your deal, you mean.’

‘Something I think you might be interested in.’

He pauses, briefly, with one eyebrow raised as he expects her to interject, is actually being accommodating of her answer, her part of the conversation. He continues on when no response at all is forthcoming. ‘How about this? I teach you blood magic in exchange for access to your blood. Or, if you don’t like that, I can just kill all these elves before they kill you.’

‘No. They don’t want to kill me, they want me alive. They have not seriously harmed me.’

‘Yet, anyway. Not until they sacrifice you to their god. You know, I could impersonate that god. Then I could get some deserved praise.’

She considers him, silently. There is so much deception he’s engaged in its hard to know where to even start. And by refuting him, over and over, she intends to make him lose interest in whatever it is he thinks he can get from her. Make it no longer worth his effort. ‘There are no Dalish who practise human sacrifice. There haven’t been for hundreds of years.’

‘Who said these elves were Dalish? That’s quite an assumption you made, just because they have tattoos on their face. Especially when you haven’t actually got a good look at them yet.’ He smiles at her, as if this conversation is as delectable to him as honey. And perhaps it is, if he considers this some kind of revenge for the thwarting he suffered at her hands.

‘Oh, don’t be willfully obtuse. It’s not just those eight “good” ones and the mutt in their pantheon. There are others that they acknowledge existing.’

It takes her a moment, and then--Forbidden ones. Gods of pestilence, war, awful things, and drivers of a warrior’s ego-fuelled fury. According to Solas, they had few worshipers and even fewer followers in their time. And that was the way they wanted it. They did not need to hear the whinging of their lessers.

‘Do you want to know which one they are going to sacrifice you to?’ the demon asks her.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Althea says, because it’s true. It doesn’t change anything about the situation she is in. She’s never believed that knowing how you might die, helps. There’s something else she’d rather know if Imshael insists on talking. ‘Why do they want to sacrifice me?’

‘Why not make a gift of the most powerful person they can get their hands on?’

‘I’m a hostage. They think there is something they can get in exchange for me because of my status. That’s my value.’

‘There is also value in glory and conquest. Especially for warriors. And, in case you’ve forgotten, you are the proclaimed rival of a certain man whose means of reaching of godhood you accidentally stole.’

She huffs, puffs out some air, but that’s the best response she has right now. There are not other defenses which she can muster, so she crosses her arms across her chest, grips her arms, and squares her shoulders. This free reign of movement makes her feel powerful, more meaningful than she has in days.

The Fade responds to her, and with a shifting of magic, force, and the potential of the two, they are in the main hall of Skyhold. Upon her dias she stands, one roaring brazier on either side of her, their light emphasising her, as the shards of jewel tones from the windows behind fall upon her and shatter on the ground he sits upon. A shadow prowls behind the great closed doors.

‘But then, it wasn’t your choice to steal it, was it?’ he starts, with such a knowing smile upon his face. He has seen the sights of the Fade--this is a rustic, unimaginative castle in comparison to what he knows has been out there. So she gathers, anyway. ‘You just happened to be in the right place, at the right time. You’ve become this without your consent.’ Smiling again, he gives a sweeping gesture indicating their current surroundings and all that they contain. The power, the fear, the reputation. The very ancient magic of the stones which consists a mystery most can only guess at.

‘It doesn’t matter. I am who I am now, and I don’t need your help with that.’

‘Or, you just don’t remember how it is that this happened,’ he says, his voice shading into tones that speak of consolation. Imshael steps up, getting closer to her, and then reaches out. Unwilling to yield or be affected at all, she stands unmoved as he reaches out to trace his fingers down her cheek. ‘You don’t remember what choice you actually made, do you? If you wanted to, I could give you back those memories. I can tell you if you were touched by Andraste. I can tell you if what you fear, is something you don’t have to be scared of in the first place.’

Her fear? Even here, even after months of having to work it out--what if she actually were chosen, when she has been so adamant that she was not? What if there are gods and prophets and returns involved in her heralding? Andraste came back, she did too, twice, so all that would remain is the turn back of the Creator himself. Because the wife has come ahead of her husband whom she loves and longs and yearns for.

What if.

If there were ever to be anything Althea asked to know, it’s why Andraste used an elvhen artefact as her means of working in the the world. Why the magic--and it _is_ magic, there’s no doubt about it, when it utterly refuses to respond or resonate with her own, when it tears her apart a little bit more each day--does not sound like anything Andraste herself may have used. Why the only thing the mark remotely resembles, in all of history, are the way those Magisters were able to bring Blight into the world.

‘You know, most people would want the choice to hide who they really are. That Chevalier you took in and gave shelter in your Inquisition? He struck you as decent, and yet he’s someone who doesn’t want the world to know who he is.’

‘I know of his crimes. He is not a criminal.’

‘Not a criminal!’ He laughs, in a way that seethes. Like his words are slipping from his lips. ‘Of course he is. He committed a most heinous act indeed: being born of parents whose blood should not have mingled. He’s elfblooded, you know. What an awful sin that is in this world.’

A pause, a sudden silence in which she says nothing. She has nothing which might not give her away, might not expose the sudden fear which has welled up within her. He’s looking in her eyes; he gently cups her chin. And here, indisputably, is her fearful vulnerability for which she would not ever apologise for feeling. But which could very much mean danger for the last person she wants it to befall.

‘I hope you’ll use protection, when you finally get around to doing it. We can’t have the Inquisitor herself whelping such horrendous offspring.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, demon.’

‘Ah, well. Whose choice is that I wonder. His? Most likely, judging by the way you tremble just as the thought of him. He must not even touch you. A shame, really. I would gladly plough your fields, if you needed a man to do it. Or--a woman. I’ve got friends who wouldn’t mind a go with you.’

Finally, finally, she has had enough, she cannot resist being moved to action by him. She slaps him, and the moment the smack sounds out, she shocks him with a gout of vicious lightning. This makes him stagger back over rippling stone, and, when he drops his hands from his face, he has a mark upon him viscerally excruciating to behold. Red, red, a stardust exploding into tendrils that reach over his eyes, to his temple, down to the curve of his chin. She has damaged him. But, when regarding her, he seems to only have disappointment for her. No rage or anger.

‘Just as well. We always have a choice. But you know that, don’t you, Inquisitor? You know it, and believe it. If you had survived this, you still would've had to reckon with that human woman. Killing others to satisfy your ego is such a boring, predictable choice. I’m just baffled that it took you so much wasted mental energy, to figure that out. I wonder, was it worth losing your life over? Of all the things to concern yourself over to death it was some bucolic Orlesian noble.’

No. Of course it wouldn’t have been her choice to do so--she would have made the decision in the end. And the right one at that. But he’s already gone before she can deliver the retort.

 

**.**

 

They pull her up, and that wakens her to a world gone grey. Clouds overhead, lying low, dropping drizzle, threatening more.

There are seven of them, including her: one human, ragged, ruddy, still bound; six elves, healthy, possessing lovely liquid eyes which stare at her from atop intricate perches of eloquently intertwined lines. Their vallaslin, their blood writing, are crimson, like fresh unbleeding gashes carved masterfully into their burnished amber faces. Besides a few darkish smears on their earth-hued clothing, you couldn’t tell they’ve been leading her through the woods for days now. Or fought off a pack of wolves.

Was it a pack, though? Or just the one she saw? She realises, as they pull her to stand before them, she never heard any howling.

The elves speak amongst themselves for a moment using insouciant, nearly bored tones. They don’t seem tired, but the gestures they do use towards her are laconic. Is this what her fate is to them? After finding out she’s alive, it’s just a simple matter of deciding how to transport her this time?

Not Dalish. There are no aravels to convey her. This whole journey has been made on foot.

One of the elves steps towards her, leans in towards her, gets right up in her face. Two fingers hooked on the blindfold hanging limply around her neck, an intense molten honey looking into her bleary eyes. She tries to shy away with a whisper of a whimper, because it’s too much for her to be seen so closely, but the elf holding her shakes her and jerks her back into position. Another joins in to help hold her steady. The knots in her back crunch from the agitation.

The elf looking at her--a male, somewhere between twenty and forty with his smooth, unharried skin--shrugs. Then backs away from her, and he says something she actually understands after so many days with them.

‘ _Not her._ ’

No, she didn’t summon the wolves. No, she did not create the corpse laying some meters away from her, scattered now and actually better categorised as a carcass and some once-attached parts. No, she is not the one responsible for her heart still beating. That was probably the demon, who wants, if he’s going to get nothing else from her, to see some satisfying revenge.

So be it, then. She will not yield. She will not let in death and destruction and all the attendant chaos into such a powerful position as hers. She will fight until the end to keep him out. Andraste did not volunteer for the pyre, but she was not saved from it: not by divine intervention, not by her human husband who watched on as she burnt.

She tastes blood, probably from collapsing before fainting into the Fade. She spits it out on the dirt before the elves.

One of them slaps her, before taking her rope and yanking. This time, there’s no hood to mask their progress. She sees everything. And, shortly, she’s sure she’s scented the salt of the sea. Heard the roar of a great slate-back beast, because a storm is on the way.


	3. iii.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She gets to the end.

She watched him sleep.

While she should have been sleeping herself, she saw the steady, vulnerable rise and fall of the back turned to her, heard the faint whisper of his breath over the ancient stones, witnessed him, for the first time, and the only time, completely at peace. In this world, or in any other, she imagined. In fact, when she was sure he was as good as dwelling in his dreams, she reached out to him, closed the gap between them, and feathered her fingertips in the basin of pooled fabric in the sensitive space between his waist and hips. Rough to the touch, there was no knowing how old these clothes were, how many times they had been patched or mended since the time they first left a humble spinner’s loom.

The colours have long since gone dun, like the details of a dream lost upon waking. The dye had run, like a pleasant dream run its course. The snag he’d hidden from her with his belt, was like a sudden revelation upon reflection. Such was the state of his garments.

Her hand trembled there above him still, as if restrained by temerity, she was abiding by the boundaries set wordlessly between them, as of yet broken. The ceasefire, the agreement, the accordant they both tacitly signed had not, so far as she knew, been ripped up by eager, right-intentioned hands and cast into flames to be obliterated.  The arrangement made to benefit all involved was in a bafflingly nebulous state.

She could have woken him up. She could have drawn him back to her, and asked him. She could have, and they could have, willingly figured this out together.

But she did not wish to disturb him. He was gone, he was away, he was far from her. Probably he would be waiting for her to join him, but there wasn’t a doubt in her mind that he had already started upon a grand journey through history and its attendant memory and mysteries. They lay together in an elvhen ruin. Interest initially drawn by vestigial shards of once prismatic mosaics, it had not taken him long to recognise imagery of the leitmotif that promised a hint at this place’s lost purpose. Here, he had pointed for her, towards some bits of tarnished gold above them, some chunks of monotone that may have once been biege. Flowing water, naked skin--allegedly.

Bathhouse, he had called it. And then added that this prosaic word did nothing at all to illuminate the mind with the luxurious, sumptuous truth of what may have once been. Like calling a staff a stick--you got its form correct, but were no closer to understanding its function.

He was excited, happy, glowing. He couldn’t wait to show her. All she had to do was join him. Falling asleep: what could be more natural, what could more effortless, or more simple?

As these things tend to go, it was not a simple matter for her. She had tried--mental exercises taught to her in the decades she spent in the Circle, various suggestions by her companions truly from all over the world, even the soothing meditation Solas had taught her and done with her himself many times before. Nothing worked.

In front of her, he shifted infinitesimally. A small, insignificant twitch of muscles, a twinge of a tendon, a rustling of clothing fainter than a spider tying off her web. The thin worn leather strap of his necklace draped between his slowly moving shoulders.

Was it an itch in her stomach that kept her awake then, a thin traitorous coil that threatened to reach deep within her? Was it nerves still frayed beyond repair, even if he had insisted she watch and personally confirm his wards would keep away their furry eight-legged friends?

It could have been. But that’s not how she remembers it. The main thing was--the clear, hard, unchanging neon-bright focus that always draws her attention when she mulls over these things--is him. Together with her, laying his head on a curled up pack so similar to her own. His arms crossed over his slim chest, the point of his ear finely tapered to a tender point. She thought of the nonsense she was once told, that elves are shaped so that they can hear the voices of the gods better.

She had also heard been taught that elves are fallen farther than humans. They are more disgraced in the eyes of the Maker who has long since turned from them all.

All she wanted to hear, were the soft beginnings of his snoring.

 

**. . .**

 

The ocean, when it comes finally comes into sight, is a terrifying view. A stormy violet horizon, hemmed in by grey above, below, and in all conceivable directions. The group stands at the edge of the forest, the stark border where the trees suddenly stop growing because of the too-stony soil. Water and wind and time have eroded away a great deal of the shore, so that what’s left is primarily precarious precipices with days that are obviously numbered. Lightning flashes, far away, but still seen to strike with sudden and wild force. In addition to the salt and the water, there is hardship on the cutting wind.

Althea has a wish for a cloak which she does not express. Not only would they likely not hear her, the agony she is in is already enough. Her head pounds, her heart pounds, her joints all ache and it doesn’t seem inconceivable to her that her muscles have all consumed themselves by now. This cannibalisation would go a long way to explaining the pervasive weakness in every part of her body. For as invigorating as the blasting chill of the wind was at first, it keeps buffeting her, keeps forcing her back, keeps getting into the spaces left by her clothes. Her body warmth is gusted away from her and all she is left with is the excessive shivering of a thinned, diminished body doing everything it can to be as warm as it needs to be.

If she were to ask for some protection against the cold--and they were to understand her--what reason would they have for humouring her in this request? Whether the demon had been trying to trick her or not, if he had been lying to her to turn her against people who truly meant her no real harm, there is something she cannot deny. Today is different than other days. Now, they are waiting.

Upon reaching the edge of the forest, their strict single-file order is loosened, broken, by a scattering out until they are two distinct groups. She and a blood mage shepherd are one, with the rest of the group moving out to comb over what appears to her to be only barren land.

Though it wouldn’t be surprising to her if she’s missing something rather big, or obvious, if something dire or drastic were to just suddenly happen. When they had led her here--even with her hood and blindfold left off--it had taken her some time to realise they hadn’t actually always all been proceeding in single-file. She had been, but there were times when two would slip out of the group and vanish into the shadows. Maybe to keep an eye out for any more errant lone wolves. Maybe to make sure they were headed in the right direction after all.

It doesn’t make any difference to her, though, as the one being led.

Like a lamb to the slaughter? Slumping against the lichen-rough leeward side of a boulder, she really doesn’t know. She has no idea what their sacrificial rituals are like. And, when she does know, it will be too late for her to share them with anyone.

Sensing the sting of heated eyes upon her, Althea looks up at the elf who is holding the end of the rope tied around her neck languidly in one hand, still standing as he observes her. The staring continues, and continues, filled by cold minutes of relentless wind and painful shivering. Finally, her brittle will snaps, and she cannot hold back her fear of doing something wrong.

‘What,’ she almost cries, though most of the excess emotion is consumed by the fury of the wind. ‘What do you want from me?’

Even if she doesn’t expect an answer, she leans back onto her stiff, aching, bloodless arms, trying to maximise and maintain the illusory comfort of distance.

And, without giving her an answer, or any kind of interest at all, his gaze drifts upwards from her and to something beyond the cover of her boulder. He says something against the bluster of the squall, something which she can’t make out even with the words she’s picked up over the last handful of days, and then he makes a looping gesture with the hand holding her limp lead. A shake of his head, a shallow shrug, and now he is bending down before her.

‘You are cold,’ he says in the common tongue. ‘Wait a bit. No point to fire when it will soon be wet.’

Without waiting for her response, probably not caring about it too, he looks back up and continues to speak to his clansmen and women. Then, with an actual laugh, he gets up and pulls her in the direction of the trees.

He means to allow her some cover from the coming rain. Already stray drops are strafing onto her face and body, so she does not need to be tugged twice. She gets to her knees, rises to her unsteady feet, and follows, to the base of a tree with a slight hollow between two thick, undulating roots. The blood mage gives her a push to help her down into it. He secures her to the trunk with the length of rope used like a leash, tries the give of it with two of his fingers. Then turns around, settles himself on a gnarled root nearby, and looks out to sea.

‘You can speak the common tongue.’

No response.

‘What are you waiting for?’

He sneezes. Rubs his inner arm against his nose.

‘Why are you doing this to me?

It begins to drizzle, though the pattering on the leaves  is another swallowed sound.

‘Why am I--’

‘Shut up, human,’ he snarls suddenly, turning around on her with the telling, fluid feral grace of a practised killer. Here is someone who has ended countless lives. A knife has been produced to draw the speck of blood needed to silence her through strangulation. Utterly smothered, all she can do is whimper as force crams into all the space within her airways. She is so busy panicking she doesn’t see what else it is he does, but the mark _explodes._ Caught between the tree and her clogged throat all she can do is wordlessly writhe, coating herself in damp, gritty mud in the throes of her soul-shredding agony. Breathless, unable to breathe--dying. Blurred fae festive lights dancing on her vision, lambent long feathers of mystical birds pile up, up, until her vision is not really one of the world.

Then, a slick point touches and presses into her forehead, and she greets oblivion like an ecstatic zealot. Never has a release been so merciful.

‘No more words, whore,’ he says to her as she fades.

 

**_._ **

 

Waking up like this is routine now.

She is sluggish for the first few moments.

She will be better soon.

Hunger will come back, thirst will come back, and so will the unconquerable fear for her life. The humming will recede. But the pounding--that is incessant and constant, it does not fall away.

By the ocean. That is where she last was.

Now, she is near it. Nearer, than before.

And closer to the end.

Now, the blood mage is sent to fetch her. She had been moved, at some point in her unconscious sleep, to lean against what feels like a tall nondescript pile of rocks. As she is pulled, blearily, to her feet, she sees that the pile actually has form. Ah, of course, she thinks, and it has an apparent function too. This cairn that they've constructed will serve as a marker only they and their own will know how to read. Arlathan, when it stood, was to the north of this turbulent sea; are they leaving some kind of landmark to lead what they want to them?

Power, the memories of what once was, their god, maybe spirits, or even the demon skulking around not too far off in the Fade, perhaps something else that too wishes to sunder the Veil--it will, as intended, find her after she is gone. Pointed towards the great roiling, churning grey chaos, she has an idea of where she will be headed soon.

Led over towards the sea, she is shown the depths into that she will plunge. Allowed to hang over the edge of the precipice for a moment, she staggers with frenetic jerks backwards into the chest of the blood mage holding her. There is no choice left to her, her legs have given up and the remaining shreds of her sense are beginning to unravel with the last careless yank on a loose thread.

What, more than the height, is so very fearful to her?

They will not know. He will not know.

No-one will know how she died. That she did not suffer so very much, in the end. That this, out of everything that could have happened, isn’t the worst. Not by a long shot. She is not: becoming an abomination, being tainted by Blight or red lyrium, unable to remember who she is, coughing up bits of disintegrated lungs, suffering the swift inevitable expansion of ice in her veins and heart and other vital organs, having to watch her companions slaughtered before her, being consumed by the foreign force harboured within her left hand.

They wrench her forward, down onto her tired, scabby knees. They begin chanting. A haunting sound, an old sound, hateful primal harmonic music which few in this age have had the privilege of hearing. What some wouldn’t give to witness it, she’s sure.

And she thinks, of this: scholars tucked tightly into their cozy libraries. Mortars and pestles for alchemy, though she was never all that good at it, the smell of fresh herbs that was a verification of the green, living world she remembered existing outside of the walls that immured her. A wisp dancing among her fingers, touchless nudge affectionate no matter what those stuffy Chantry sisters might say. She knew better than them, always did, and it was such a nice thing that this was one of the first things they ever agreed upon. What warmth there had been when she smiled at him. It’s not much of a consolation, but it’s something.

Then, the knife is in. A small precise insertion of black glass into the delicate flesh of her breast, and finally, finally she is free.

 

**. . .**

  
  


But that’s not the end.

Not for her, anyway.

She finds herself quickening in unbearably gentle warmth. A sharp gasp of a sound fills the still space, and she is surprised to find that it must be from her, and she realises with a delay of seconds that a bandaged and compressed torso, the very origin of her pain, is keeping her down. When she searches, however, her fingers and toes flex. Her arms are able to move within a small range of unhindered movement.

She is free. She has been rescued.

A fragment rises up to meet her. Like the surface of the water had, and the vicious peaks of stone poking maliciously out from the crests of black waves laced with white foam. But--

She moans, trying to remember, and that draws attention.

Somewhere, outside of her range of vision, beyond where she can muster the strength to move her head, is rustling. Then shifting, then a shadow, then a silhouette, then a cool hand lain on her forehead.

Such reverence in the gesture, such chastise devotion, she aches, she could weep. Real tears muddy her already dim vision.

‘Sol--as,’ comes her croak of a ragged whisper. She makes a noise in her throat, suddenly, urgently needing to communicate with him, her entire body pushes upwards him to be nearer to him for this purpose.

Gently, so gently, he soothes his hand through her hair and and sends a pulse of his magic through her that chimes warmly upon all her skin. He’s easing her, the best he can without smothering her.

When he is finally able to speak, he too is overcome. His voice does not last long before breaking. ‘Hush. You’re safe now. Please, you need to rest.’

‘How--’

How did he know? How did he find her? How did they save her? How, how is it possible that she’s still alive?

Was it the demon?

‘The mark,’ he says, as his hand goes searching for hers under the blankets and sleeping roll encasing her. They’re in a tent, she realises, as she sees the canopy of thick bland canvas above him. It is grand and magnificent as a cathedral, for all that she is concerned just now. Blinking once, twice, her eyes track to his as he finally tangles their fingers together and nearly crushes her fine bones.

He lowers himself, he comes to her, he places his forehead on hers and it seems, in this moment, like he might never part from her again. Not if he can help it. ‘The mark.’

Of course, she thinks, as she breathes in and smells the familiar scents of him. This anomaly, this curse, this thing that is surely killing her, this lethal legend that has burst forth from the Age in which it belongs, it only makes sense that it marks her like a beacon so vivid, so strange, he could find her anywhere in the world if he wanted to.

The mark, it’s like his anchor to her.

‘I will protect you, my heart,’ he whispers, and she believes, as his lips brush against the clammy skin of her brow, that he means it. ‘I shall keep you safe.’

Though from what, she doesn’t have the faintest inkling. There’s no way, not for her, to know what is both the light and the stalking, encroaching shadow inexorably drawn towards her. There was no way she could’ve known that, even as he is slipping his careful hands into the delicate hollow of her back, so that he may hold her close, he is thinking of the sacrifices which he could and couldn't bear to make.

 

**. . .**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all: if you're reading this, thank you! It means so much to me that you stuck through my nonsense until the very end. o7 When I initially started writing this, I intended for it to be a short one-off of some interest, primarily because I think there are some ideas in it which haven't quite been explored before. The connection between the Forbidden Ones, the Forgotten Ones, and the Evanuris--it's definitely there! Especially since the elves who worship Forgotten Ones and practise human sacrifice in eastern Orlais are actually from canon, though their existence is more an anecdote than anything. Adding Solas into the mix, I eventually ended up with the idea of the Inquisitor becoming involved in way over her head even more than she in canon. She has no idea what is actually keeping Solas hesitant to engage in a relationship with her. Now, when there's even more at stake, he finally breaks character and has to reveal a bit of his true self in the process of trying to protect her from the chaos he has wrought. 
> 
> So, just a quick few notes about the relationship: this takes place before they actually are officially together. They are dancing around it and trying to respect each other's space until the situation forces someone's hand. This is also the first time he calls her by that term of endearment. It won't be the last, of course, but it will be the most meaningful! 
> 
> Very soon I want to start working on a much longer story fic which will play off of the ideas established in this one. If you feel like the ending wasn't exactly conclusive: there is still closure to come! The Inquisitor now has more than just the eyes of Corpyheus on her, so there are a few extra challenges in her future. 
> 
> Otherwise, thank you again for reading, and any and all feedback is appreciated.
> 
> Much love!


End file.
